Before you start flapping the wings on your remote, creator Nancy Miller ("The Closer,""The Profiler") wants to make clear that Grace is not a cable remake of "Touched by an Angel."

"You say angel and people roll their eyes," she says. "In my mind, this is not a religious show. It's about a woman trying to find something to believe in other than the pain in her life."

With good film roles scarce for women in their 40s, they're turning to the small screen. Like Glenn Close in FX's forthcoming "Damages" and Kyra Sedgwick in TNT's smash "The Closer," Hunter was drawn to cable.

"Cable has taken a giant step toward being iconoclastic," she says. "It has defined itself as a seeker of human behavior that's not judged or encased in moral standing."

To Hunter, Earl's role is to persuade Grace to recognize a higher force than herself, a god with a lower-case g. "He doesn't care if it's Muhammad or Allah or Jesus or the Virgin Mary," she says.

In Miller's original script, Grace was a TV reporter in L.A. She became a cop because it presented a different sense of authority and ethics, according to Miller.

The locale was moved to the Bible Belt "because it was hugely important to surround this woman with God-fearing people," Miller says. Also, the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995 plays a role in Grace's character.

Fun fact: Many of the characters' last names are based on real Oklahoma burgs -- Earl, Dewey, Ada. Grace's handle, Hanadarko, is derived from Anadarko. (You can look it up in your atlas.)